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Written in fRoots issue 221, 2001


MARIANNE MAANS, MARIA KALANIEMI, OLLI VARIS
I Ramunders Fotspår
Finlands Svenska Folkmusikinstitut FMI CD 16 (2000)

MARIA KALANIEMI & SVEN AHLBÄCK
Ilmajousi - Luftstråk
Amigo AMCD 745 (2001)

MIKAEL FRÖJDÖ & NIKLAS NYQVIST
Förförd
Finlands Svenska Folkmusikinstitut FMI CD 17 (2000)

JEPOKRYDDONA
Folkmusic From Jeppo
Finlands Svenska Folkmusikinstitut FMI CD 19 (2000)

The Swedish-speaking communities of the western and south-western coastal areas of Finland, and of the archipelagos of the Gulf of Bothnia, comprise about six per cent of the country’s population, and have their own cultural and musical traditions, which in some cases have preserved Swedish material forgotten in Sweden itself.
      Celebrated Finnish accordionist Maria Kalaniemi comes from the Finlands-Svensk community in Espoo, and while her albums with her band Aldargaz reflect that in part, the trio with her guitarist/mandolinist husband Olli Varis and fiddler/singer Marianne Maans concentrates on Finnish-Swedish songs and tunes. So on I Ramunders Fotspår we get three ballads including Ramunder, dating from the 15th century and learnt from a wax cylinder recording made on the island of Kökar by collector Otto Andersson around 1910, which tells of the hero’s decapitation of a giant, plus other songs, minuets, polskas, a waltz, a schottische, and three tunes by Maans. Kalaniemi rarely sings in other contexts, but here she and Maans take the vocal leads. To the trio’s diatonic and chromatic accordions, fiddle, jouhikko, guitar and mandolin are added occasional percussion, sax, kaval, Jew’s harp and double bass from Kristiina Ilmonen, Janne Lappalainen and Tapani Varis. It’s a fine, varied collection of strong material little heard elsewhere. The final track, an ingenious schottische that would be perfectly at home in a compilation of English country dance bands, they learnt from fiddler Sven Runar Wiik before he died in 1997; he would no doubt have been surprised and delighted to know the tune he learnt from his grandmother would spring to a refreshed and ongoing life.

      On Ilmajousi - Luftstråk (“Airbow”) Kalaniemi and Swedish fiddler Sven Ahlbäck pick up the threads of their first informal play together in the early nineties, that gave rise to some of the tunes on her first solo album. Joined for some tracks by nyckelharpa player Johan Hedin and singer Susanne Rosenberg, they flow through a rhythmically and melodically stimulating series of Swedish traditional and new tunes, in which the big chromatic accordion is shown capable of breathing the same air as a dancing, surging, pitch-subtle master fiddler, rather than crashingly brutalising the music as it has done in so many other hands.

      Kalaniemi, and of course Gjallarhorn, are Finlands-Svensk roots music’s best-known performers, but they’re not its sole exponents. On Förförd Mikael Fröjdö sings, in a narrative style not far from that of an English guitar-playing folkscene singer, Finlands-Svensk material, including the likes of En Båtsmans Äventyr I Japan (“A Bosun’s Adventure In Japan”), accompanied by his own fiddle, guitar, accordion and flute and by guitarist Niklas Nyqvist.
      And there’s the young female fiddle and accordion ensemble Jepokryddona, who come from Nykarleby and Jeppo. The five fiddlers, all teenage and early twenties, studied classical music at Jakobstad music school, but it’s common for the new wave of young players in the fiddle hotspots of Central Ostrobothnia to be involved in both classical and folk playing. Led by accordionist Christine Julin-Häggman, the group specialises in the Jeppo traditional dance music repertoire which is typified by minuets, polskas and waltzes. Folkmusic From Jeppo, recorded by Gjallarhorn’s producer-engineer Martin Kantola, presents an interesting bunch of them (including Jusslins Menuett which is also on I Ramunders Fotspår) played ensemble with skill and spirited lift, and occasionally, in a down-to-earth normal-voice way, sung.


© 2001 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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Kansanmusiikki-instituutti (Finland's national Folk Music Institute).

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